Hamburg Climate Conference

November 17, 2009

Hamburg
Ambassador Philip D. Murphy

Sehr geehrte Frau Bürgermeisterin,
Sehr geehrter Herr Vize-Präsident der Hamburgischen Bürgerschaft,
Sehr geehrter Herr Minister,
Sehr geehrte Excellenzen,
Sehr geehrte Frau Senatorin,
Sehr geehrte Abgeordnete,
liebe Gäste,
meine sehr verehrten Damen und Herren,

ich freue mich, dass heute so viele Klimaschutzexperten und Vertreter von Metropolen aus der ganzen Welt sich hier zusammengefunden haben.

Es ist mir eine Freude, hier in Hamburg zu sein – einer der beiden offiziellen europäischen Umwelthauptstädte. Generalkonsulin Karen Johnson und ich möchten Hamburg gratulieren und Ihnen sagen, dass wir hier in unserem Konsulat alles tun, um gute Bürger dieser wunderbaren Stadt zu sein. Im Konsulat und unseren anderen Einrichtungen in ganz Deutschland haben wir einige Umweltschutzinitiativen für mehr Energieeffizienz eingeführt.

[It’s wonderful that so many climate experts and city representatives from around the world have come together for this conference.

It is a pleasure to be here in Hamburg, one of the two official Green Capitals of Europe. Consul General Karen Johnson and I would both like to congratulate Hamburg and let you know that here at our Consulate we are doing our best to be good citizens of this wonderful city. A number of green initiatives to maximize energy efficiency have been implemented at the Consulate and at all of our facilities throughout Germany.]

It is an honor to participate in the first City Climate Conference of the Covenant of Mayors. The Covenant of Mayors is a commitment by cities to do what that they can to reduce CO2 emissions. We have a similar organization in the United States. In 2005, the U.S. Conference of Mayors initiated a U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. Over 1,000 mayors from across the United States have signed on so far. We have representatives here from three member cities – Chicago, which I might add is Hamburg’s sister city, Albuquerque and San Francisco. Here as in the United States, cities are leaders in the area of energy innovation. Because in fact the re is a lot that cities can do. Cities can adopt land-use policies that reduce sprawl; promote alternative transportation options; advocate for the implementation of renewable energy resources; make energy efficiency a priority through building retrofitting city facilities; practice sustainable building; increase the fuel efficiency of municipal fleet vehicles; increase recycling rates; and help educate the public – to name only a few.

It’s clear that there is a lot to be done on the issue of climate protection. It will require an enormous amount of hard work and cooperation. It will also require the commitment of government at all levels.

Two weeks ago today, Chancellor Merkel addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress in Washington. She was the first German chancellor in 50 years to address Congress and the first chancellor ever to address a joint session. As one of the millions of Germans who grew up in East Germany, she knows that all barriers, whether real or symbolic, can be overcome when people stand up and work together. Chancellor Merkel urged us to come together as partners to tear down the walls of today. We face complex threats that cannot be stopped by borders or oceans. Today, Germany is the centerpiece of an extraordinarily strong European Union. The partnership between our two countries is one of our strongest and most important. The United States is eager to work with the new German Government on a full range of shared challenges. The Chancellor called the test of climate change one of the greatest that humanity has faced. She has been an extraordinary leader on the issue of climate change. President Obama, too, has made climate and clean energy issues top priorities for his administration.

Under the President’s leadership, the United States has taken dramatic steps in the past year to change the way we use energy at home. The President has mandated sharp increases in automobile fuel efficiency. Our Recovery Act, the stimulus legislation passed in response to the financial crisis, included more than $80 billion in clean energy investments designed not only to jump-start the economy, but also to build the clean energy jobs of tomorrow. Billions of dollars have been pumped into investments in renewable energy sources to spur long-term sustainable economic growth. Because, as President Obama often says, transforming our energy system and growing the economy go hand in hand. The world is now engaged in a peaceful competition to determine the technologies that will power the 21st century. Indeed, the great race of the 21st century will be to provide affordable clean energy to the world. From the United States to Germany, from China to India, nations everywhere are racing to develop new ways to produce and use energy. The nations that win this competition will be the nations that lead the global economy.

Cities make great incubators for a new green economy. For example, one of the investments that are being made under the Recovery Act is a smarter, stronger, and more secure electric grid. Over grants totaling almost 4 billion dollars will go to cities, utilities, and other partners to install smart grid technologies in their areas. Matched by industry funding, the grants will expand the manufacturing base of companies that can produce the necessary components for smart grid systems. This translates into jobs – good jobs that bring new career opportunities.

Last month President Obama launched a smart grid project last month in Florida. He sketched his vision of a clean-energy future marrying solar panels, advanced storage batteries, plug-in electric hybrid cars, home energy management systems and smart appliances together in a grid studded with new sensors and control devices. There are also a host of initiatives in the European Union. The International Energy Agency has estimated that over $16 trillion will be spent around the world until 2030 on designing, building and installing smart grids. With the appropriate application of ingenious ideas, advanced technology, entrepreneurial energy and political will, the same way we don’t remember life before highways or the autobahn, the Internet or e-mail, a time will come when we won’t remember life before the Smart Grid.

The United States, Germany and other European countries have been the movers and shakers in the these industries – in transportation, computers and communications. We have been engines of global economic growth over the past decades. It is clear that we will have to make some major transitions to maintain that status. The automobile industry is the Exhibit A case study of an industry in transition. The industry is undergoing a world-wide restructuring. The car business is central to the economies of the many of our countries. But to make it stay that way, the industry needs to embrace innovation. I am positive, for example, that we will be driving cars twenty years from now. But how long will it take to make electric cars or some other environmentally friendly vehicle profitable? It has to happen. Investments, however, made today will, on the one hand, not pay off within the life cycle of current management but, on the other hand, are accelerating development dramatically.

Right now, there are entrepreneurs and inventors out there who are revolutionizing the way we manufacture solar panels or build wind turbines; who are working to discover a new lightweight battery for electric cars, or develop a safe and affordable way to capture carbon from coal plants. We need to make sure that those inventors – perhaps the next Bill Gates – have access to capital. We can let their mothers worry about whether they finish college. We need to make sure that the new, transitional industries that will define which countries will be the engines of economic growth into the 21st century are oiled with both credit and risk capital.

Institutions must show the kind of engagement and commitment required to drive the engines of global growth as we have in the past. Both of our countries have talented labor pools and enormous potential for innovation. We know that embracing entrepreneurial risk has the potential for enormous economic growth. Since the 1970’s the venture capital community, has built companies, created jobs, and catalyzed innovation. In 2008, companies started with venture capital accounted for 12.1 million jobs or 11 percent of private sector employment in the United States. This is not the task of government although the U.S. Department of Energy is also reaching out to the venture capital industry to jumpstart cutting-edge investment in new energy technology.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel prize winning physicist by the way, recently announced the first federal grants for high-risk, high-reward clean-tech ventures -- including revolutionary technologies like using bacteria to create gasoline. "We are trying to hit home runs, not base hits," Chu said. "These are out-of-the-box approaches."

The administration's initiative drew cheers from the scientific community, which sees federal funding playing a critical role in getting basic research off the ground. It can pave the way for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to take those ideas and turn them into multibillion-dollar companies.
The grants are being directed through the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or Arpa-e, a new organization modeled after a Defense Department program known as Darpa. Darpa pumped resources into military research ventures. Some of its funding backed research that became the backbone of the Internet. The government, again working in concert with the private sector, can have the same kind of impact on high-tech clean technologies.

It is, however, up to the government is to make clear to the world that the United States is back at the table in international climate negotiations. We believe all nations have a responsibility to address this urgent global challenge, and we are prepared to assume our share of responsibility. The United States is committed to reaching the goal of a global, legally binding climate agreement.

To the rest of the world, the passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act in the House of Representatives signaled America’s growing commitment to preventing climate change and building a global clean energy economy. It helped leaders at the G8 and the Major Economies Forum held in Italy this July reach agreement on important points, including the need for emissions to peak as soon as possible, commitments to prepare “Low Carbon Growth Plans,” and a pledge by developing countries to take actions that would meaningfully reduce their emissions from their current trajectories.

Currently, the Senate is reviewing the Clean Energy and Security Act legislation. It is unlikely that the Senate will still be working on the bill when the Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen begins and ends. As you know, the Congress has also been spending a lot of time on health reform legislation. That has delayed the focus on climate legislation – not because it is less important. Both issues are crucial to America’s future. What is most important, however, is that the House and Senate versions of this legislation would commit the U.S. to emissions reductions somewhere between 17–to-20 percent in 2020.

With the right blend of pragmatism and principle, however, we believe we can nevertheless secure a strong outcome at Copenhagen, an outcome that would be a stepping stone toward full legal agreement. As President Obama stated on the weekend, he expects that Copenhagen can realistically produce a “framework for success” that would be a basis for negotiating specific commitments in a final legal agreement. Remember that Kyoto failed, among other reasons, because U.S. promised but could not deliver. We do not want that to happen again.

Prime Minister Rasmussen from Denmark, the chair of the group overseeing the United Nations-sponsored climate talks in Copenhagen, briefed President Barack Obama and other leaders gathered for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation in Singapore. “Even if we may not hammer out the last dots of a legally binding instrument,” Rasmussen said, “I do believe a political binding agreement with specific commitment to mitigation and finance provides a strong basis for immediate action in the years to come.”

We cannot let the pursuit of perfection stand in the way of progress, but there are clear metrics by which we will judge the result at Copenhagen. Any agreement must involve immediate global action in which all nations do their fair share. It must include a commitment to a system that will ensure transparency and accountability with regard to the implementation of domestic actions. An agreement must also endorse funding facilities to assist developing countries. The United States is prepared to support a global climate fund to help developing countries identify what they need, where to get it, and how to finance, operate, and maintain it. Above all else, this must not be an agreement between the U.S. and the EU. The BRICS must be with us, particularly the “C” part of the BRICs.

There are many other front burners issues on our common agenda but it is clear that Copenhagen must be the beginning of a renewed global commitment to meeting the climate challenge, not the end. Regardless of what transpires next month, there will be much, much more for the United States and the world to do if we are to successfully meet this common global challenge and achieve a clean energy future for our children and grandchildren.

Meine sehr geehrten Damen und Herren, vielen Dank für Ihre Aufmerksamkeit!

As prepared for delivery.